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Tragedy, recovery, now life: Three-year-old moves on after shooting

January 3, 2007

Beaumont Enterprise, Jan. 1, 2007 PORT ARTHUR, Texas - Three-year-old Amy Pao sat on a high stool at her aunt's restaurant, using her tiny fingers tipped with red nail polish to bat around a star-shaped Mylar balloon filled with helium. She smiled and laughed as she tossed the balloon back and forth with customers as her chatter switched from Vietnamese to English and back. The smiling girl was playing in a similar fashion at Sinh's Restaurant in Port Arthur when gunfire erupted at about 8:45 p.m. Feb. 26. She was caught in the crossfire. Amy was taken to University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, where she had surgery to remove the bullet. She spent a week in the hospital recovering from her injuries, Cunong Tran, who works at the restaurant, said after conferring in Vietnamese with the girl's aunt, the restaurant's owner.